


Genesis

by smolcaptaincorgi



Series: Wings and Webs [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I hereby dub this one Earth-20006, I think you know who I'm talking about now, Placeholder Titles, The Author Regrets Everything, Whump, all the works I see have like 50 tags, and I cannot do that so, and besides this is gonna be the main one, and can't name things, and it's not another comics universe either, and since the MCU-Earth is Earth-19999, because I can't tag, because I have no imagination, because we're all sick of it, but I can't tag and I'm lazy so I said screw it, but it needed to be there, for reasons you will never know, i literally just put stuff in a google doc and copy paste so I have no idea how to do anything, it's like products on amazon, it's only mentioned, lol this has like 40 tags, mainly whump ig idek, placeholder titles will be removed soon, please help me, the author will eventually format and edit, there are way more relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2020-10-20 22:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20683238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolcaptaincorgi/pseuds/smolcaptaincorgi
Summary: Genesis - an origin, creation, or beginning.Maxine Harris has known Peter Parker for eight years.And then Peter has a run-in with a certain radioactive spider, and Max just so happens to come across a bird that is also radioactive and has serious anger issues, apparently.Raven has known Spider-Man for two weeks, but she doesn't want to know who he really is. It's not her problem.Being a teenager is a lot harder than people said it would be...(Rated Teen for death and swearing.)





	1. Where it Began

**Author's Note:**

> Hello to anyone who found this somehow! Basically, I just created a character and put her in with Peter Parker with a couple other adventures. Mostly canon otherwise until it isn't.  
I have no idea where this will go, and I might change titles and stuff, so please bear with me.

**April 2007**

“Hey! I’m Peter!”

“I’m Maxine!”

“That’s really long. I’m gonna call you Max.”

“It’s only one letter longer than your name.”

“But it _ sounds _long.”

“...” 

"...Do you not want me to call you that?"

“Actually, I really like it. It sounds cool!”

“Thanks! You wanna play with my action figures?”

“Sure! I don’t wanna be stuck with Matthew! Stephen can take care of him.”

“How old are your brothers?”

“Stephen is like ten, and Matthew is two.”

“Ten? That’s like super old!”

“Mommy thinks it’s funny when I say that.”

“Why?”

“Because she's a grown up. But c’mon, let’s go play!”

**THREE YEARS LATER - MAY 2010**

“Maxine, I’m gonna put you down now, okay? You’re getting too heavy,” my dad said, and lifted me off his shoulders.

Dad and I were at the Stark Expo. My brothers and mom were there too, but they were with Peter’s aunt and uncle to talk about adult stuff. I knew they didn’t really like Iron Man, but Peter and I had wanted to go really badly, so we went.

At first I couldn’t see anything, and I kind of got scared because I couldn’t see Dad, so I put my green Iron Man mask on so I wouldn’t be scared. I had painted it green with my dad because green was my favorite color and also the color of my eyes, according to Stephen. Stephen was thirteen and wasn’t scared of anything, unlike Matt, who was seven and scared of everything. I was also scared of everything, but I could be brave if I was Iron Man.

I realized I couldn’t see Dad, but I remembered that I was Iron Man and not supposed to be scared. Then everyone started running, and I decided to also start running there was an explosion behind me and I tripped and fell. I tried to get up and start running again until I saw the robot.

The robot kind of looked like Iron Man but gray, and it looked like it might shoot me or something until someone stood in the way. Peter. He raised his hand and it looked like he was about to blast it with his glove.

We had known each other for three years now, since we lived in apartments right next to each other, and we were best friends. I stood up and started tugging at his sleeve, because it would be really bad if the robot shot him, but he wouldn’t move.

Just then, _ Iron Man _ came in and blew up the drone, throwing Peter backwards with enough force to knock me down.

“Nice work!” was all he said before flying up into the sky.

Peter took off his helmet. “Woah! That was awesome! So I was with your mom and May and Ben and your brothers, and then people started running and I couldn’t see anyone, but then I saw you fall and I saw the robot and I thought you were gonna get hurt, so I stepped in front of you and then Iron Man came in! You saw that too, right?”

“Yeah, of course! Did you see my dad or anyone?”

“No, but I think I saw Uncle Ben go over there!” Before he could finish his sentence, we were both already running until I saw everyone except my dad.

“Mom? Where’s Dad?”

My mom looked at me. “Weren’t you with him?”

“We got separated, and then...” I suddenly remembered the explosion.

_ Dad? _

…

Dad wasn’t in the car with us when we went home that day.

Everything else about that day is kind of a blur.


	2. The Field Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was just a field trip to Oscorp. What could go wrong?

  
  
  
  
  


**FIVE YEARS LATER - November 2015**

“This place is _amazing,_” Peter mumbled. I found myself smiling because, well, he was right, and also because of his adorable nerdiness. Oscorp was amazing.

Well, it would be more amazing if they let us go into the one room that I had wanted to go in for a while - the room where they did all their experiments. “It’s for your own safety,” the Oscorp employee had said.

_Safety be hanged, _I thought. _I’ll be gone for a second, no one will notice._ Making sure no one was looking, I slipped into the experiment room.

_If they don’t want people in here, then why isn’t the door locked? _I wondered.

There was one thing in the room: a raven, sitting on a perch in the corner. It squawked loudly and I winced.

I walked over to it to get a good look. The larger-than-average bird cooked its head, then in a fluid motion it pecked at my arm with its beak, cutting me.

Mumbling a curse, I pulled a tissue out of my pocket and wiped off as much blood as I could.

It was probably a good idea to get out of there, so that was what I did.

...

I had a fever by the time I got home after the field trip.

“May says Peter’s not feeling too well either. Maybe you guys caught something there,” my mom said as she hung up the phone. “Pretty ironic, don’t you think?”

“Mmm,” I mumbled. The truth is, I hadn’t heard her. My back felt like someone was cutting it open.

“I’ll let you rest now,” my mom said. “Get better soon!”

…

When I woke up, I noticed something odd. I blinked a couple times, rubbed my eyes, and blinked again.

I knew I had taken my contacts out, so why was my vision so good all of a sudden?

I stood up and opened the blinds. I squinted, trying to adjust to the brighter-than-usual light before closing them again.

Groaning, I rolled back into bed, but was then faced with another problem. Or three other problems.

I could hear everything, from the people in the apartment below me yelling at each other to the cars honking outside. I could smell everything, from the perfume my mom was wearing to someone smoking outside. And I could feel everything, from the sheets to my clothes.

I had heard of sensory overload, but I never thought it was this bad. Stephen had anxiety and sensory overloads, so sometimes Mom had to pick him up early from school. But it was weird for something like anxiety to just magically start in someone, I thought.

Right now I was too tired and sick to actually think about what was happening, and decided I’d deal with it later.

…

The next day, my senses were still freakishly hyper but they weren’t a pain in my ass, which was nice. I didn’t need my contacts to see, either, which was also nice. I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and when I looked up at the mirror, I noticed something other than my rat’s nest of long brown hair.

I was never a very athletic kid - if anything, I was kind of skinny. But now? Now I had a muscular frame and I looked nothing like I normally do. Stephen does a million different sports and he doesn’t look like this.

The thoughts of _this definitely isn’t normal _entered my mind, but I pushed them away, opting for the _I’ll deal with whatever it is later _approach. I rinsed my mouth out and went back to bed, and only when the door opened did I wake up.

“Mom said to make sure you’re drinking,” Matt said as he opened the door and walked in with a glass of water. 

Matt was going to be twelve in December, but he was so much shorter than anyone else in the sixth grade. His baby brown eyes looked a lot like Peter’s did (maybe that’s why I was so protective of him) and his mop of brown hair was uncombed as always, which my mom hated with a passion.

“Well, I think I have that covered, since drinking water is a skill essential to my survival and well-being and so I need to do that. But thank you,” I added.

“Y’know, I think the point of moms is to ensure you are not neglecting things ‘essential to your survival and well being’”, Matt laughed. I was good at making him laugh, and I’d always been the one to cheer him up since Dad had died. It was too close to the anniversary for comfort, and that fateful November day was the textbook definition of bittersweet.

“You doing all right, Max? And I don’t just mean because you’re sick,” Matt said after a moment.

“...Yeah. Don’t worry about it,” I told him. Matt was only five when it happened, and he didn’t remember his dad as well as Stephen and I did, so it was easier for him.

I took the glass from Matt and drank some. “Thanks for the water, Matt. I’m gonna try to get some sleep.”

“All right,” he said, smiled, and left the room.

As it turned out, the freaky shit that had happened so far was not the weirdest to come.

…

I woke up in the middle of the night to a searing sensation on my back, and fell asleep, hoping it was nothing. However, when I woke up a couple hours later, I realized that it was definitely not nothing.

There was something on my back, but I was too exhausted to really think about that as I stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the light.

I immediately forgot what I was going to do as soon as I looked in the mirror.

What. The. Hell.

What. The. _Hell_?

Was I dreaming?

_Deep breaths. In, out._

_In, out._

Because _of course _the weird shit that had been happening didn’t stop at the whole _reading minds _thing I discovered I could do hours earlier, when I responded to what Mom was saying right before she actually said it.

_“How’d you know what I was going to say?” she had asked, and I could feel the slight confusion in her mind, which was of course a thing I should not have been able to feel, so to keep from freaking out I took deep breaths before responding. _

_“Guess I’m psychic or something,” I then replied. It obviously sounded like a joke, _but it was anything but_, my brain helpfully supplied. _

_“With all these superheroes running around lately, it wouldn’t surprise me,” she laughed, and then turned away to start cooking dinner._

At that point, I couldn’t read her mind anymore. I had wondered if the person had to be facing me for it to work, but when we had sat down for dinner nothing had changed.

For the rest of the night my new ability decided it would turn on and off whenever it felt like it. Fun. At least I had learned how to differentiate between what people were saying and what they were thinking.

But of _course _it didn’t stop there. Because facing me in the mirror was something _so much weirder._

I should have been more freaked out, but some combination of general it’s-the-middle-of-the-night factor and the amount of books I had read kept me from having a heart attack and waking everyone up.

Peeking out from behind my back were _two feathered wingtips,_ because that’s not weird at all. I guessed they stretched out to about where my elbows would be if I did a T-pose, and they looked to be black. _The raven._

Upon closer inspection, I discovered I could move them, and even fold them. They disappeared into my back, and then I realized that they had probably ripped slits in the tanktop I was wearing.   
  
I decided I would worry about that in the morning, as the dark wings blended into the fabric and didn’t stand out.

  
Because things just _had to get weirder._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it took me way too long to write this please help me. I had writer's block and school and also have no idea how to format. This was actually the hardest part and I kinda have a general plan for the rest of the fic so yay.
> 
> (Editing this I just realized how short it is but OH WELL)


	3. Soaring

It had been a few days since I  _ grew wings  _ (hooray for radiation), and a few weird powers had developed, of which I was making a list. 

Besides the wings (which had now grown to about ten feet but folded in nicely), I had superhuman strength, speed, agility/reflexes, and balance, enhanced senses, a weird sixth sense thingy (I could catch things without looking now!), an uncanny ability to know which direction I was going ( _ Maximum Ride  _ much?), and, oh yeah, the ability to read minds, which, thankfully, I had learned how to turn on and off. 

The downside was that I couldn’t exactly choose what I wanted to hear, and it seemed kind of like an invasion of privacy anyway, so this ability was one I had decided to use as little as possible.

Another thing was that I could create illusions - not for a long period of time, though. This, combined with the fact that I wore undershirts, would help with the “changing for gym class” issue. I figured it was linked to my mind-reading ability, so...telepathy?

“Why the heck would Oscorp make a telepathic bird?” I mumbled before grabbing a jacket, a snack (I had also discovered that I needed to eat more), and my backpack, and hurrying out the door. My fever had broken (gee, I wonder why I had one), and my mom said I had to go to school.

I met Peter and Ned as I walked in the door. “You guys feeling better?” Ned asked.

“Well, I feel like crap, but May didn’t want me to miss more school,” Peter said. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, which was odd.

“You sure you just didn’t want to miss P.E? Because we have to do the fitness challenge today,” I remembered. I desperately hoped my amazing new power that I had received would, you know, function. I had tested my ability to project illusions and it had worked most of the time.

“Yeah, screw P.E,” Peter laughed.

“I just  _ love  _ hearing the instructions for the fitness challenge,” I mimed sitting down on a chair. “So, you have to run laps in fitness class...”

I went to my locker to grab my history notebook and went to class. Peter was in most of my classes except math, because I was a year ahead of him (he was in algebra II and I was in precalc). Ned was in my biology, english, spanish, and gym class.

Halfway through the class, Peter passed me a note reading,  _ Want to meet me after Decathlon? _

I scribbled,  _ I promised Matt I’d help him start his new LEGO set,  _ and passed it back.

He passed me the note again, which read,  _ You think he’d mind if I come over too? _

_ No, I’m sure he’d love it,  _ I wrote, because Matt’s always looked up to Peter and loves it when he’s at our apartment.

I looked at my watch and waited for the period to end.

…

Gym class went off without a hitch, thank God, and after a long round of Decathlon practice, I headed home.

Matt had gotten a new LEGO City set - he loved them. I mainly like them because Peter, Ned, and Matt did. The rest of the evening passed by pretty quickly - Mom had an extra shift at the hospital, so around 6 we put down the half-finished fire truck and went to Peter’s apartment to eat dinner.

“Smells good, Ben!” Peter called as we walked in the door.

“Oh, good thing Ben’s cooking, because we all know how  _ amazing  _ May’s cooking is,” Matt said.

“I heard that!” May called from somewhere in the apartment.

“May I remind you the one time you tried to cook you created what was essentially a piece of concrete?” I replied. My mom knew how to cook, and she taught me, but when she tried teaching Matt it didn’t go so well.

“I detect the smell of pasta,” Peter cut in.

“Did you suddenly become a robot or something? Because no one talks like that,” I replied.

“How would I become a robot?”

“Well, you just recovered from the flu. Maybe it was a robot flu,” Matt said. “Weirder things have happened.”

“You’re not wrong,” I laughed.  _ If only he knew... _

That night was one of the best I had had in a long time: we ate pasta, started building Matt’s new set, and watched way too many vines.

…

It was around midnight, after Matt and my mom were in bed, and I was sitting on a roof, wings unfolded, sticking out through my pajama shirt.

Part of me was completely freaking out. The other part of me, the more imaginative part, the part that had read one too many  _ Maximum Ride  _ books, the part that had always dreamed of flying, the part that lived in a world of heroes and villains, was...excited.

I wondered if I had air sacs, or what else I could do with the mind powers, or if any new abilities would develop, and of course the big one: if I could fly.

The ratios seemed to work out pretty well, given my weight and wingspan - I had done the math. And what was the point of having wings if you couldn’t fly - decoration or something? I had read a book once where a kid grew wings but needed to use helium or something to fly, which is kind of lame if you ask me.

So, being the intelligent person that I am, I stood up, jumped as high as I could (which was pretty high), and started flapping my wings.

Now, I had not jumped off the building. I had simply jumped into the air, because I’m not  _ that  _ stupid and I had found out that I could jump pretty high. So I started flapping as hard as I could, which just resulted in a weird sort of floaty thing that I did for a few seconds and my crashing to the ground.

The next time, I decided that maybe I should try tilting myself forward so I was horizontal to the ground and then start flapping, because normally that’s how birds flew. So I jumped again, let myself fall forward, and...I was floating in the air, a couple of feet above the ground, and slowly rising with each flap.

Holy crap.  _ Holy crap.  _ Holycrapholycrapholycrapholycrap. This was  _ insane. _

I was flying. Or at the very least, floating.

I continued to keep going higher (I didn’t know what else to do, and didn’t know if I would be able to get up into the air again) until I was about a story above the roof of the building, and then stopped but still stayed in the air, bobbing up and down because I needed to get my bearings for a second.

This was so  _ cool _ ! Okay, first things first, figure out how to move forward and not just float awkwardly. I tilted my wings a little bit - it felt so natural, it was  _ insane _ \- and now instead of bobbing in one place I was now bobbing and moving forward a little bit, until I had quickly cleared the edge of the building and now there was no more ground to support me if I fell -  _ Oh God  _ \- and so I kept moving forward and then decided I needed to try turning, so I kind of tilted my wings to the left and all of a sudden I was also moving left and kind of forward, and then I tilted to the right again and stopped turning, and then kept tilting to the right and so I was turning right, and even though obviously I was kind of winging it (bad pun, I know) it felt so  _ natural,  _ like I had done this a million times before, and so I decided to go faster.

I moved forward again, but this time faster, and it just kind of happened without me having to really think about it, and then I was far away from my apartment and decided to go higher too, and then when I got super high I tried moving down, and then I kind of did a dive thing where I pulled back my wings and just kind of leaned forward and then spread my wings out, and everything felt so instinctive, and so I decided to stay up there for a while just doing tricks and flying around.

Around 2 AM, I landed back on the roof and folded my wings in, feeling how hot they were from exercise.

  
Well, I could definitely add  _ flying  _ to my list of superpowers. 


	4. Rapid Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many things happen. Most of them aren't good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for...well, I would spoil it if I put it here but if you don't like guns do a skippity skip when you get to the alley part down to around the bold text (or just skip the first half of the chapter)
> 
> oh and also I don't own this besides like 5 characters which should be kind of obvious but people are idiots so yeah

Well, despite the fact that I figured out how to freaking  fly around a week ago and had been doing it just about every night since (yes, my sleeping habits suffered, but it was worth it), my life was about as normal as it gets - building LEGOs with Ned, Peter, and sometimes Matt, reading a new book under my desk in Earth Science, and eating dinner with Mom and Matt (Stephen was coming for a visit in a few months). I had started flying around more.

Oh, and then it all went to hel in the blink of an eye.

…

School was horrible and I was tired and even more hormonal than usual (yay for my period) and after I got home I just wanted to  sleep,  but then Mom said  we need to talk  and my bad day was suddenly worse.

I sat down at the table and she started ranting.

“I know you’ve been sneaking out. And don’t try to lie to me, because I came in to check in on the last few nights and you  weren’t there.  What have you been doing that requires you to sneak out in the middle of the night to do it? If you’ve got a boyfriend - or girlfriend - you could’ve just  told me \- I wouldn’t be mad. I’m only going to get mad when you  don’t tell me. ”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I grumbled. I didn’t even have a crush.

“Then what have you been doing? Enlighten me.”

Oh, nothing much, Mom, just been flying around the city with the wings I grew after interacting with a radioactive bird.  I stayed silent.

“Okay then, if you won’t tell me, you’re grounded for the next two weeks. Nothing except school and back, and definitely no more sneaking out.” With that, she stood up, indicating the conversation was over.

And then everything got to me, and I lost it.

“What do you think I’ve been doing, getting high in a back alley somewhere? I thought you’d trust me enough - and know me enough - to know I wouldn’t  do  something as stupid as that! You’re always so worried about me, and you don’t need to be - I’m  fourteen,  I can take care of myself. I’m not trying to do what Dad did, you know.”

I immediately regretted it and regretted it even more when I saw the look on her face. So many emotions and thoughts raced through her head (well, now I know getting angry activates my powers).

So I ran.

And didn’t stop running for a good long while, although I was mostly just running in circles because I was afraid to go to far.

I stopped in an alley beside an abandoned building to catch my breath, and then I sat down and started crying, because I hadn’t allowed myself to think of my dad in so long and it  hurt.

I was mostly numb, until I explained to Matt (because Mom tried and she couldn’t do it, and Stephen hadn’t said two words since we got back from the expo), who was six at the time, that Dad wasn’t coming home, and then it hit me. I took some snacks, candy, and books from Stephen’s room, and for the next few days I stayed in my room, hiding from everyone, wishing desperately for my dad to come in and make it okay.

Peter came over and finally got me out of my room and we just kind of watched movies together.

“How come Iron Man couldn’t save your dad?” he asked, and I wondered that too.

“Because he had to save other people, I guess,” was all I could think of, and I was a little happy that at least other people didn’t have to feel sad like I was, and that Iron Man had saved everyone else there.  Including me and Peter.

At the funeral, I hugged Matt as tight as I could and promised that this would never happen to him, because I was his older (and only) sister and I had to make sure he was safe.

I sat there for a long time, and when I got up I heard a voice. I tensed up, but then I saw who it was.

“I’m pretty sure you’re more grounded now, so congratulations,” Matt said, walking into the alley.

“How’d you find me?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t shake.

“I saw where you were running and snuck out,” he said. “Now let’s get outta here - you wanna go to the playground to have some fun before you inevitably get grounded for the rest of your life?”

“Sure,” I smiled, but just as I got to my feet I heard a man’s voice saying, “Give me any money you have or you get a bullet in the head!”

He wasn’t threatening us, but a young girl about my age who was pressed flat against the alley wall. “I don’t have anything!” she cried.

I pushed Matt behind me and took a few steps forward. “Pick on someone your own size!”

It worked - the mugger was distracted. However, this had the consequence of him looking at us. And -  oh crap -  he had a gun.

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to pick on you, then, eh,?” he said, grinning evilly. 

“Sorry, I try to make a point not to give money to criminals,” I replied. I figured I could take this guy out with my powers if need be, and besides, I was trying to stall. I looked at the girl, and indicated with my head that she should probably  get the heck out of there,  and she did. The mugger turned his head when he heard her footsteps, and once he realized what had happened, he growled angrily, and then I heard the crack of gunfire.

I braced myself for the impact, but.

but.

it didn’t hit me, and instead, Matt crumpled to the ground.

Nonononono this can’t be happening

Not this not this

The mugger was gone, but I didn’t care, because I saw where the bullet had hit, and there was no way anyone could survive that.

You might’ve been able to,  a tiny voice in the back of my head whispered, and I pushed it down before I could think about it too much, instead dropping to my knees. “Matt?”

Max?

Yeah, it’s me.  I didn’t think before doing it, but on the other hand…  I’m sorry.

Not your fault.

Max?

Yeah?

Then, with my enhanced senses, I heard it 

as his heart stopped beating.

And I realized I didn’t want to ever be in a world without the absence of that particular sound, but now I did and it was  my fault.

As with my dad’s death, everything else blurred out, but I vaguely remember the other girl coming back, seeing what had happened, and calling an ambulance. Cindy, I think her name was. Cindy Moon. She did Decathlon with me.

I remember getting home, and desperately trying to scrub all the blood off my hands, which I had done before thanks to my period, but this time it was different because it wasn’t mine.

And for a while, I lay curled up in bed, eventually running out of tears to cry.

…

Stephen came home from college.

This would be great in any other situation, but since we were attending our brother’s funeral, it was not.

I don’t think I need to go in detail. It’s a funeral. I’m pretty sure everyone knows what a funeral is like.

Peter, May, and Ben were all there, and a bunch of kids from school.

The minister was talking and I was just frustrated because he didn’t know Matt at all, and he had no right to be talking about his life like he was.

His gravestone was the worst part.

Matthew Caden Harris

2004-2015

Eleven years old.

Eleven.

He would never graduate middle school - or even sixth grade - or start high school, or drink, or... do  anything.

Ever.

And it was my fault. If I hadn’t run off, he wouldn’t have come looking for me, and if I hadn’t been so cocky with the mugger everything would be fine.

When the funeral was over, I just ran for a while, not tiring, with dark thoughts swirling in my head, their tendrils grabbing my mind tight.

…

Ben died a few days later.

Because of  course  Peter couldn’t catch a goddamn break.

I just kind of felt numb. 

I’d felt numb since Matt died.

…

My family consisted of five people.

Then, when my dad died, it was down to four.

Stephen went to college, and it was down to three.

And now, it’s just me and my mom.

And I’m not sure what she’ll do when I leave, in one way or another.

…

Teachers and everyone are asking how I’m holding up, how my mom’s holding up.

I just say that we’re doing as well as we can.

They ask Peter the same question.

He usually mumbles a response along the same lines.

Before, he was the most exuberant and hyper kid I knew.

And now, he’s so angry that I can feel it coming off him in waves. Literally.

It sounds weird, but so does everything else about my life now.

…

Ned is worried, I can tell that much without needing to read his mind.

He gives Peter and me something from his lunch, because we never remember to pack a lunch anymore.

There are more important things to worry about.

…

My mom’s a mess.

To be fair, I am also a mess.

First her husband, then her son.

And I could’ve done something to stop it.

…

May’s stretched thin.

Without Ben’s income, she has to work two jobs just to pay the bills.

I know this because Peter cannot stop thinking about it.

It’s morally wrong, definitely, but I need some sort of anchor. So I read minds.

But I digress. A fourteen-year-old kid should definitely not have to worry about something like this.

...

Everything’s turned on its axis now.

It feels like the world should’ve stopped spinning.

But it didn’t, and I have to keep moving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if you see words embedded in these <> that's because I cannot type those words when I edit at school so if those are there I suck at editing so yeah


	5. I Need A Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max becomes a hero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow I updated and it didn't take me a year  
my computer sucks and decided to delete part of the chapter because of course it did and it also does random crap so idk anymore

The night I decided to become a superhero was actually a pretty mundane one.

I couldn’t sleep because of my brain screaming at me, telling me  _ you could’ve saved him,  _ over and over, which it had been doing for a week and a half.

So I climbed out of the window and onto the roof.

I was wearing a pair of black sweats and a sweatshirt of my dad’s that I had cut slits in because Mom wouldn’t notice.

Cautiously, I unfolded my wings, using them for balance.

And then I had a thought.

A lot of crime happens in Queens. Especially muggings.

Some people die in those muggings. Including Matt.

Maybe I couldn’t save Matt. But I did have superpowers now. I could probably take a bullet - or at least, better than a normal human could.

I could save people now. Make sure they never had to go through what I did. Make sure another girl doesn’t lose her brother, or another mother lose her son.

Obviously, I did not have the material to make a decent superhero suit.

But I did have weird illusion powers. So maybe I could “project” a costume but just wear what I was wearing.

_ Wow, that sounded like something straight out of a comic book. _

…

I got a ski mask and a neat looking costume illusion and I was ready to go.

On my first day, I saw a man getting mugged.

“I don’t have my wallet, but I can give you my phone!” he pleaded.

“A phone ain’t gonna do me crap. I need your money.”

“Maybe if you ask nicely, he’ll give it to you,” I cracked from my spot on a roof above the alley.

_ The hel is this kid?  _ was the mugger’s reaction.

“I’m the person who’ll teach you the words ‘please’ and ‘thank you’,” I replied to his thoughts, taking off and landing (on my feet, which I was impressed with) right between the two men. “Do they not teach you that at mugger school?”

The guy seemed pissed, and decided to fire at me because of course he did.

Instinctively, I held up my hand, and then a completely unexpected field of green light burst out of it, knocking the gun out of his hand and deflecting the bullet. They landed harmlessly a few feet away.

_ Oh, cool. New power.  _ I tried not to show what I was feeling too much, and quickly knocked the mugger out because he was still on his feet after that.

I turned to do a running takeoff when the guy I saved called out, “Wait!”

“Yeah?”

“What’s your name?”   
  


I thought about it. I obviously couldn’t tell him my real name, and I hadn’t thought of a superhero one. Then I thought about my wings.

“Call me Raven,” I replied. And with that, I disappeared into the night sky.

…

I met Spider-Man, as he called himself, about a week later, when I was stopping a bunch of guys from ambushing a girl. However, they all had guns and there were also four of them and one of me.

Of course, they were not happy to see me, and decided they would ignore the girl and shoot the heck out of me. Or try to, anyway. I blocked or dodged all the shots, but they had a lot of ammo and I was getting tired quickly.

Then, of course, he swung in. On webs. 

And also disarmed all of the attackers. With webs.

_ Weirdest superhero I’ve ever seen,  _ I thought as I incapacitated all of the attackers.

“Man, some people,” he mumbled after the girl had left.

“Did...were those webs?” I asked in reply.

“Yeah. And before you ask, they’re synthetic.”

I laughed. “Well, you weren’t shooting them out of your ass, so I figured…”

“Please stop before I have to think about that.”

“So...spider? Why spiders?”

“It wasn’t really my choice. I got bitten by a radioactive one and all of a sudden I can stick to walls.”

  
  
Well, this was baffling. “You can stick to walls?”

He demonstrated it, climbing up a foot above my head and flipping off to land in front of me. “Yup.”

“Wow. Also, you have the worst superhero origin story ever.”

“No kidding. So...you can make force fields?”

He hadn’t seen my wings during the fight. “That’s one thing, yeah. Maybe we should go to the roof instead of standing in a dark alley like a couple of idiots.”

“How will you get up there?”

“Like this.” I jumped high enough to clear the buildings, and opened my wings to glide to the roof.

“So that’s another thing?” His eyes were wide. I hadn’t noticed before, but he was wearing a homemade suit like I was.

“Yup,” I replied. “You coming or what?”

…

“So...you can also read minds?” he asked nervously.

“It seems that way.”

“That means you could find out who I am, then?” His voice went up about an octave.

“I could, but I won’t. You literally wear a mask, and I respect that you want to keep your identity secret. I don’t need anyone finding out who I am either. Who you are behind the mask isn’t a concern for me.”

“Good, because more people might start to know who I am if I keep doing this and if the wrong type of people know who I am I could put all my friends in danger.”

“Same for me. So what do you call yourself, anyway? The Human Spider?”

  
  
“Call me Spider-Man.”

“Nice to meet you, Spider-Man. I’m Raven.”

  
  
“Raven?”

“My wings are black, and I couldn’t think of anything cooler. Catch you later.” I flew off before he had a chance to reply.

…

And that was how the “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man” and I became friends. Or at least acquaintances. We’d usually team up to take out larger groups of people or if there was a robbery of some sort.

“So you just woke up one morning and you had wings?” he asked me one calm night.

“Pretty much.”

“How did you not, like, completely freak out?”

  
  
“Well, I was half-asleep. Also, it was always a fantasy, I guess...and if you woke up one day, and one of your biggest fantasies came true, well, you would be excited. And we live in a world of gods and monsters; nothing’s really surprising anymore.”

…

“Where’d you get your costume? It’s a lot better than mine.”

“It’s complicated.”

  
  
“I can work with complicated. Besides, people tend to underestimate my intelligence.”

  
  
I laughed. “I know the feeling. But anyway, apparently the reading minds thing also means I can, like, project illusions or whatever. So I use that to make people see a costume when I’m really just wearing sweats and a ski mask.”

My costume was nothing special. It was mostly black, with green lines running into the torso, creating a circle running around my symbol (a pair of wings), green fingertips, and green eye lenses. I chose green because it was the color of the force fields I could make, and also my favorite color.

“That wasn’t that complicated.”

  
  
“Well, it just sounds weird in my head.”

…

So, fighting crime with Spider-Man. It became a new sort of normal, after a week or so. Then another week passed, and things changed again. This time it wasn’t nearly as painful, but it was just as shocking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I have about one chapter to go in this particular fic so after that I will format it, proofread it, edit it, start a sequel taking place during CW and possibly actually write actual decent content that isn't this but that's unlikely haha.


	6. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max discovers and reveals something.

You have  _ got  _ to be kidding me.

Out of everyone.

Out of all 2.3 million people in Queens it could’ve been.

It was him.

And I’m not even surprised in the slightest.

…

The way I found out was quite stupid.

Because he climbed through the window into his room.

Without checking said room for anyone happening to be in there. 

Namely, me. Who happened to be in the apartment because I wanted to show him the LEGO catalog so we could nerd over LEGOs together like the totally sane people that we are.

Yeah, that flew out the window just as Peter climbed in.

He landed with a  _ thud,  _ pulled off his mask, and then noticed I happened to be there.

And then his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

“You’re Spider-Man,” I said in disbelief.

  
  
“Uh...maybe?”

  
  
“Peter, I swear to God.”

…

He got bit by a spider. Wow, Oscorp  _ seriously  _ needs better security.

“It’s kind of symbolic that you’re a superhero but also have quite possibly the lamest origin story ever. Like, Iron Man built a suit out of scraps in a cave and you just got lost on a field trip and then  _ bitten by a spider  _ and now you can stick to walls or whatever.”

“Parker luck strikes again, I guess.”

“And also the lamest way of exposing your identity, because you got discovered by your best friend because she happened to be in your room and you  _ didn’t check the room when coming in and taking your mask off.  _ Seriously, when Ned finds out, we will never let you live that down.”

His eyes grew wide. “No. You can  _ not  _ tell anyone about this. Especially May. I cannot do this to May.”

“I’m not telling them, I just know they’ll figure it out.”   
  
“Well, I’ll be more careful from now on.”

“Ned’ll find out in a week. I guarantee it.”

He groaned. “How did I get into this mess?”

“Do I need to remind you of your lame…”

“It’s not that bad…” he trailed off, “Okay, never mind, it is pretty lame.”

Mine wasn’t much better, to be honest.

Which begged the question: did I tell him?

He had kind of, albeit accidentally, told me.

So I thought it fair.

But this was a huge secret. It’s not like I’d be dumb enough to go up to someone and be like, “Hey, I have wings, wanna see?”

This was Peter, though. I had known him for eight years, and in that time he had proven himself as a trustworthy friend.

But he did let his very important secret slip due to sheer carelessness.

Although that was a different kind of situation, because it would be kind of weird to blurt out your best friend’s secret identity in a casual conversation or something.

Finally, after a bit of back-and-forthing in my head and teasing Peter mercilessly aloud, I had decided.

And it could quite honestly be the dumbest decision I could make, but I had no idea. Sadly, even with my mix-and-match assortment of superpowers, I couldn’t predict the future.

“When’s May coming back? You don’t want her to see you in that,” I asked.

“Not for a few hours. She has a double shift tonight.” I noticed how he looked down awkwardly, and remembered how she had been picking up a lot of extra shifts lately since...well.

We were okay financially after my dad’s death, since my mom is an accountant and was the one who worked mainly, but it was harder because she wasn’t home a lot, so Stephen usually had to make dinner or something. He went off to college this year, but Mom figured I could take care of Matt for a while.

And wow, was she wrong.

I pushed the thought down in my mind just as Peter stood up. “I should probably change.”

“Yeah, and then we can actually do the thing I came over here to do, as in gawk over super expensive LEGO sets that we can’t buy but are also really cool-looking.”

“Okay, definitely. Give me five minutes.”

And that, my friends, is how a couple of superpowered, grieving teenagers spent two hours of their lives screaming about LEGOs.

Finally, we were finished being extremely nerdy.

“Okay, so I want to show you something that’s kind of freaky but you have to promise not to jump onto the ceiling or whatever.” I hesitated. Should I really be doing this?

“I won’t jump onto…” He stopped. “Okay, if it’s freaky I might, but I will try not to.”

And then I told him my secret. Or rather, showed him.

He stared. And stared.

Finally, he said in awe, “Okay, I live in a world where there are literal gods and I just got superpowers a couple weeks ago, but that is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I do happen to be pretty cool.”

  
  
“Har har. Seriously, though, you can do a bunch of cool crap and I can just stick to walls. How come you’re the lucky one?”

I laughed, and of course he spent an hour nerding out on my powers because of course he did.

…

My life had turned upside down within the span of a couple weeks.

And yet, somehow, the weirdest hadn’t even begun.

But no matter what happened next, I would have Raven and Spider-Man in my corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW THE FINAL CHAPTER I’M ACTUALLY FINISHING SOMETHING I WROTE HOW SHOCKING
> 
> and two more people read this so yay thanks 
> 
> also I am creating another horribly edited and formatted piece of garbage taking place during CW so that will exist at some point soon probably


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